


Hell is Empty and All the Devils are in Your Head

by Ryennin



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: BAMF Stiles, Blood Magic, Druid Stiles Stilinski, Greek Mythology - Freeform, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Mates, Necromancy, Protective Derek, Soulmates, Spirit Animals, Temporary Character Death, Trials of Hell, Wolf Derek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-23
Updated: 2018-07-23
Packaged: 2019-06-15 06:03:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 20,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15406608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ryennin/pseuds/Ryennin
Summary: "But according to the ancient books, the Nemeton was the key to what he was about to do. The tree that called out to all things supernatural like a beacon, a torch to light the crossroads between life and death, and the door that led to Hades and the Land of Souls and also to Tartaros. He knew what he was about to do was nothing less than to ignore and overturn some of the oldest rules of nature and life. He had done his homework – had dug up every single source and scrap of information he could find, both from old tomes and from the deepest corners of the internet – he knew what he was doing. He also knew there was going to be a steep price for his actions. But whatever that price would be, he decided it wouldn’t matter. No pain or sacrifice could be compared to the burning, empty chasm that Derek’s death had left in him.Stiles stared for a few moments with glassy eyes, then shook himself and started the preparations. Because what else could the solution be? The last solution? The one that had no respect for any god or man. Somewhere deep down he could almost hear Derek’s frustrated sigh and his gruff opinion on how he was an idiot for even trying.He could almost hear it."





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> First of first I wanna say thanks to my amazing artist for the brilliant job! This piece is breathtaking and perfect, it catched my eyes immediately and it was a great pleasure to writting a story fitting with it. You asked for some necromancy, I hope you're going to enjoy those part.
> 
> You can go and credit the art and give some love to the artist here: pinshekonsha.tumblr.com 
> 
> Also thanks to my fantastic friends: nosetothewind94, Szonklin and szolnok09 from AO3, and to Vica, Viktor, Bea and Márti to help me with the translations and beta reading on the last minute.

Stiles could not sleep. Counting the fence-jumping werewolves – Stiles stylishly had given up on lambs for some time – and some sedative-laden empty herbal tea could have helped his insomnia, but he was afraid to sleep. The nightmares caused by the Nogitsune ceased to haunt him, but there were new ones which were even worse. In the best version Stiles did nothing less than choking Lydia with insanely bright eyes. The scariest part of this was that he actually did this in reality. He did not want to see the injuries he caused. So insomnia ruled over him.

Not sleeping was an old friend to him. What could a 17-year old, sarcastic teenager do better than browsing through websites dealing with magic? He could have watched porn after the 30th Star Wars marathon but his otherwise raging hormones had been tuned down by self-abasement and lack of sleep. In exchange he started to accumulate a great amount of knowledge on magic, white and black magic, woodoo and wicca. He was not after faith, but efficiency: he wanted to know how he could put together the pieces of his shattered soul. He was looking for answers why he of all people had been chosen by the demon. And above all, he wanted to protect his loved ones, even from himself if needed.

Stiles put a lot of thought into his plan of actions and finally, months after the events he went to see Deaton. That night was vivid in his memory when – holding half a handful of mountain ash in his palms – he closed that magic circle with his own bare willpower and stopped the werewolves. Deaton told him that he was the spark that was able to make the circle whole. It was not absolutely clear to Stiles what Scott’s boss actually meant by that: for heaven’s sake, what the heck does it mean to be a spark? You most certainly cannot shoot laser with your eyes.

At least Stiles had never experienced any ability of that sort but he would have been proud to be Scott Summers, the Cyclops incarnate. Unfortunately, the vet was professional in making the most oblique statements, confusing all his audience. It may have been some druid thing and the boy hoped this characteristic is not a must at the wizard school. For he, Stiles Stilinski, 67 kg (11 stones) of bones and birthmark (rather than flesh and muscle), with his sharp tongue and his undue love of all red hoodies, he stepped on the path of druidhood as an apprentice.

However, Hogwarts days on Beacon Hills did not turn out to be as exciting as the boy imagined. Science of magic was more the studying of Latin names and qualities of different plants than chanting magic spells. No wonder that soon Stiles decided to dig deeper into the world of practical magic and started self-education.

One would think that in the 21st century when information society gives unlimited access to the freedom of speech it can be pretty hard to filter the websites that promise holistic cancer-healing and esoteric prophesies, but Stiles had a built-in sixth sense for finding the sites containing real information. What’s more, at the very beginning of his self-taught days – after failing three times to smuggle out one of Deaton’s promising codexes from the vet’s office where he kept his druid equipment – he found the address of a book shop nearby Beacon Hills which sold other than just vintage literature.

That is how Stiles collected an enourmous amount ofliterature on all the different branches of sorcery and that is why his friends started to ask his advice on furry problems.

He was a bit sulky when the two angry witches moving in the neighbourhood ended up as his problem. They were filled with love for gingerbread houses and cannibalism. And it was the mission of Stiles and Derek to politely send them to a better place. All this was Scott’s fault who messed up a peace negotiation with the neighbouring pack’s alpha at the same time when the witch-situation sorely needed a solution.

Stiles let out a sigh while reaching for his favourite red pullover and pondered some more upon whether to choose his older sneakers or the new ones. But eventually, as he was about to see Derek Hale, he decided on the new one he bought the day before.

It occured to him that Scott might be measuring up to his task as procurer, for lately, after the break-up with Malia, Stiles found himself more and more int he company of Derek and his grim eyebrow mimic thanks to their enthusiastic alpha. But it was all Malia’s fault…If they hadn’t split up, Stiles would never have ended up so drunk in the company of Scott McCall who could have mopped up the Pacific Ocean’s beer version without a single effect on his fast metabolism. Whatever the case was, Stiles – waving his bottle of whisky stolen form his father – sobbed his whole collection of cliches of the situation with Malia to Scott and then ended up giving a ten-minute monologue ont he granite profile of Derek Hale, about his crazy eyebrows, huge heart, irony, wit and of course about his rear end that attracted a good grab.

Scott proved to be a good friend. He took the bottle out of Stiles’ hand, dragged the boy home and never told anyone that he knows the young druid’s secret: he was never in love with Malia but was very much in love with someone else. Yet, despite of Scott’s silence about the events, Stiles found himself suspiciously often alone with Derek.

It was a nice gesture, but the boy thought it was useless tor un after this bus that he cannot catch. Why would Derek need him, him of all people, when the man can get anyone he sets his gaze upon. This is where his thoughts generally stopped, because school, the secret practice of magic and chasing monsters were enough of a diversion for him to not have any more energy pondering upon his miserable love life and a certain werewolf. Especially not upon the werewolf.

He had tried to avoid the topic and for a while the man as well but Scott’s ardent helpfulness drove him crazy. Even more so because he grew fonder and fonder of the older werewolf minute by minutes. He set up a prohibitive list for himself about the ways he CAN think of Derek and he only allowed himself to LIKE the man.

If human beings dig deep enough to bury their feelings, they can make themselves believe the repeated lies. But Scott’s plan had one good result: Derek and Stiles got so much in sync in thoughts that it was unduly…comfy. Stiles was afraid to admit but they behaved at certain times like couples after twenty years of marriage. Minus sex. That – naturally and unfortunately – did not happen.

When the werewolf sprang to his seat int he Jeep, Stiles knew that the man had not woken up all fresh and rosy, because after greeting him, Derek only growled some kind of an answer.

  
"Good morning to you, Sourwolf! I hope you keep this mood on when we get to the witch-sweep. If you show them you serial killer-face, they’ll most certainly be off without a fuss.”

"Just…drive on, Stiles. Please!"

The boy got scared. Derek was usually good at sulking and being world-weary, sometimes even flashed some fangs but he never asked like that. Or when he did, it was most certain that dying was involved.

"You all right, big guy?"Stiles asked worried.

"I'm fine…I just…haven’t slept much. No big deal."

When he took a closer look at the man, the boy realized that those are really the circles of insomnia under Derek’s eyes.

"Nightmares?"

Derek nodded.

"About the fire?"

There was no answer.

With Derek, it was never easy. The werewolf was scarred many times in his past, and the scars were deep, impossible to process. The young druid normally would have kept on bubbling, drumming his own rhythm on the steering wheel with his overactive fingers, gladly getting on the nerves of Derek. But recently it had been different. Stiles was originally intimidated by silence. He needed to fill in the void. But beside Derek he learnt that not all silence is bad. He put his palm on Derek’s thigh with an unintended intimacy. The werewolf was breathless for a moment than his tense muscles relaxed.

The rest of the road was spent in the silence of their shared silence.

Unfortunately, as it turned out, the hundred years old witched marked as cute old tea-ladies did not accept the ultimatum given to them, even though Stiles innocent soul trusted otherwise. Derek nearly smiled at thinking 'Stiles' and 'innocent' in the same sentence, but it was more urgent to use the time they won by Stiles’ monologue he used to divert attention and Derek turned into his beta form and attacked the two women.

As Stiles later put it, it hasn’t their day and yet it became theirs. Neverthelesskicking the doors down-technique is not the most useful when the pair is an insomniac werewolf and a newbie, self-taught druid.

All in all, one of the witches sent an angry poltergeist in a bottle onto Stiles, while Derek managed to kick the other woman down. Stiles was in haste to get rid of the restless soul was beating him up, and tried to cast a spell to set himself free, but he mixed up the words. As a result of this, the gingerbread house turned into a sea fortress, and after a couple of hours only a big slump of dough remained in its place. Just before that the spirit managed to grab Stiles and shot him through the walk like he was a ragdoll.

Derek witnessed the whole scene petrified. He saw Stiles' body smash into the pine and fall to the ground with a loud thud. Thanks to his werewolf instincts ... raging wrath.

Avoiding the ghost's next assaultthe werewolf digged his sharp nails into the witch's throat without blinking an eye and ripped it out. As soon as the hag's body fell on the floor the poltergeist also vanished.

Stiles was still lying under the tree motionless. Trembling from the tought what state he will find his friend, Derek approached him slowly. Although he heard his mate's heart beating which meant he must be alive, the view still made his heart ache, and suprisingly piercing way.

He leaned over his body, so he can place him to a much comfortable and safer position until he gains his conciousness back. For hist strenght it would be child's play, but as soon as he carefully placed his hand under the boy's head and started to gently pull him up, Stiles's beautiful whiskey-brown eyes suddenly poped open and stared directly to the werewolf.

"Hey…" he wishpered."It’s fine, Sourwolf, no major demage happened, I’m going to survive. You don’t need to carry me in bridal style, that will be just as perfect during the honemones. Or, you know what? Before that we could go out for a date? What do you say? Date sounds cool. Or… Maybe… Au… Okay, we should talk about this later. I’m sorry – Stiles smiled faintly at the man dragging him to their car. He then noticed the new shoes he put on that morning which lost their colour after they had been wallowing in dirt and sugar. "I think I should have chosen my old shoes."

Derek stared incredulosly at the boy hanging from his neck, then at the sneakers and then again at Stiles. He didn’t know what made him do what he did.

Maybe adrenalin, or the backwash of fear. But Derek Hale amongst the sugary fallen pieces of the gingerbread house kissed Stiles Stilinski.


	2. Chapter 2

Two weeks has gone without any further fluster, which counted as an individual record in Beacon Hill’s life.

As for Stiles, his private life started a serious deep flight since that stray kiss with Derek. Obviously they hadn’t discussed what exactly happened between them, or talked aboutdates. When Stiles finally hadcame to the conclusion by collecting all of his hidden strenght that if there is no other solution he should have use aconite to got any kind of reaction from the werewolf, his dad asked for his help to solve a seems-to-be-unsolvable mistery.

"So, I figured what this creature must be what dad is investigating after." Stiles wishpered to his best friend, Scott, sitting next to him during the Economy class.

They were unseparable since kindergarden: shared numerous inner jokes, had learnt how to wrap shoelaces together, jointly grabbed lacrosse sticks, had played video games and dreamed about growing up and going towonthe hearts of Beacon Hills’ hottest girls.

The curly, dark-brown haired Scott and his puppy eyes just started to explore his newly developed alpha werewolf power. This whole situation was completly new forboth ofthem, but they were deep in it together since the beginning as they were Scott and Stiles, Stiles and Scott, unseparable best friends and eternal partners in crime. They all new, that the freshly bitten, young werewolf would have died without his human friend. Since the now-seems-like-joy-and-fun happenings of their very first full moon, they have been getting through things theywould have never imagined. Maybe Stiles' dreams were equally weird with the madness level of their experiences, though most of the time in his dreams he was wondering around the city withhis special Robin – this role was played by Scott – and saved Lydia from the horrors of the town.It's a fact, however, that they had no chance left to being bored since the furry time of the month issue was knocked in their door, therefor there was no need for Stiles to galloping as Batman in his dreams or awake, since he was satisfied if he was able to sleep.

You can call Beacon Hills anything but a boring town. As their last 'adventure' – when Stiles was posessed by a vengeful foxdemon – already proved that the town functions as a beacon for supernatural beings. Nowadays the number of odd strangers has reached a dangerous limit. Some of them was friendlier thanthe others, who tend to prefer the locals served on a plate with some delicious garnish.

Stiles was't even surprised when the Sheriff, with a gloomy expression on his face, asked him for help in a crime unsolvable for the ordinary police. Tourists visiting the woods of the Beacon Hills Preserve started disappearing in a worrying number only to reappear later as dead bodies lacking most of their inner organs. What made the incidents even stranger was the fact that the remaining organs – if there were any – were liquified or turned into some unrecognizable gelatinous mucus. The autospy declared that the skin of the bodieswas peeling off like parchment and theyextracted traces of some kind of toxinfrom the victims' blood that was unknown toscience. The coroner, showing her exceptional professionalism, noted in her report that she saw signs of someone or something having the innards of the cadavers sucked out, transforming them into parched death masks. Not to mention the'tiny' issue of several punctures on the dead bodies, that made the officers' skin crawl.Even if these could be the explanationfor injecting the toxin, judging by their size and the exit wounds – as far as thereport says – the murderer must have used at least a samurai sword dipped in poison to impale his or her victims from behind.

Reading the documents it rushed through Stiles' mind that he should pack his father and the half of the town _now_ to move them a few hundred miles. But instead he started franatically investigating after informing the pack. In the last three days the number of the victims has increased to five and there also has been multiple disconcerning reports about sightings of a bear-sized animal wandering the Preserve. One of the witnesses happened to be Finstock. The coach was walking his favorite Great Dane when the monster firghtened them to death. After many sleepless nights and with the help of a book borrowed from Deaton library Stiles finally felt like he solved the mistery.

There was the possibility to discuss his findings with Scott after school or during the breaks but the teen was electrified from the excitement. It was something big, he knew it. Literally.

He couldn't hold it until the end their first class on Monday, so he started presenting his discoveries during double economics. Stiles felt that it wouldn't even be a genuinely serious problem if they weren't discussing it during lessons.

"Good morning all the winners of today!" Finstock load, ear-killer voice filled the whole room. The teacher probably used to this volume so much, he hadn’t even known any other one to use. Although, according to Lydia, the teacher suffered in deafness caused by ignorance and narcississtical personal disorder. "I’m aware you’ve all heard about the danger outside, don’t pretend you haven’t: a bear attacks people and killing them. The police are investigating, everything is under controll – except that a fucking bear murdered my beloved dog, Dolly – but we, here are sitting in Economy class, so shut up and listen."

The class groaned in unison and stirred up conversations began. Using this opportunity Stiles turned to Scott.

"Oh man, Dolly? His Great Dane’s name is Dolly? I must be in a bad fanfiction or something…" said Stiles with a dead-pan tone. "As for the monster of the week, it’s a djieien." If it wasn’t for a creature which was just about to raven the half population of the town, he would been excited.

"A what? Is this a real word?"Scott furrowed his brows as he attempted to make a confused expression, yet he still looked like a puppy.

"A djieien. Technically it’s a giant, Derek sized, albino spider with a hint of a small dosis of deadly poison, spiced with a gourmet lethal instinct. Considering the measures of it, I’m not surprised they cry for a bear, though it’s ridicolus, that people eat this reasoning…" He glanced up to the coach. "I don’t believe only Scooby and Shaggy was scared."

Scott creeped out to the slightest hint of spiders. Behind the mask of a heroic alpha an arachnophobiac chihuahua crouched.

"And how we can catch this… thing?"

"Scotty, you should try to use the word 'spider' at least. It is not complicated, you just need to articulate and spelling words…" Seeing the panick took over his friend’s expression, Stiles stopped the teasing. "Anyway, I’ve read about a legend, which talks about…"

"McCall! Bilinsky! My heart is full of with hope that you two are discussing the contexts of demand-supply charts." Finstock's voice was so harsh it almost teared out their eardrums. "Just because you are in the team, McCall, it doesn’t liberate you to not paying attention! I had an aunt from a distant branch of my family tree… I’m not even sure she was my aunt, or my relative, but she must be, because…"

Stiles would have prefer to leaning to his bench and using his books as not so comfortable pillows instead of listening a boring, 45 minutes long lecture by the Economy teacher, who sketched his whole family tree started with Lincoln.

Fortunatelyduring lunch break Stiles had a chance to share his knowledge and plans with his friends. They gathered around a table in the schoolyard and Stiles started.

"If I got it right, than" Isaac started after listening the results of theresearch "this creature has a tiny, tiny issuewith storaging it’s victims as food, after stabbed and injected them with a kind of crippling juice.

"Yes." 

"Then it grabs a straw and sips your body fluids out as a syrup while having a party with the group of its spider-buddies."

"Except the straw part," Stiles nodded "yepp."

"And you want us to visit all previous locations where this spider appeared in two-person teams, and whoever successfully discovers its location, should climb a tree, and yell some latin mumbo jumbo, which should kill this djie---djie-i-dunno-what a thing."

"Yepp."

"And all of this, because besides this creature’s favourite dessert being gut-shake, it also carves its own heart out and places it at a completely random place near its den, making itself nearly immortal. You can only kill it by stabbing the heart, which you can find by shouting spells from the top of a tree." Isaac was twiddling with his trademark scarf. "Congratulation, Stiles, this without doubt, is the stupidest legend and plan I’ve ever met."

Stiles was about to speak up, when Lydia interrupted him with one of her bright-but-sharp smile to amend Isaac’s summery.

"Don’t forget about the creature’s 6 feet height."

"Oh, yeah, that one too, I almost forget that. Thanks for reminding me, Lydia!" The blond werewolf’s tone was drenched by sarcasm while he stood up and reached for his bag.

"Wait," Stiles grabbed his arm "where are you going? We haven't finished yet!"

"Don’t know what do you think, but being bitten by an enormous, hairy, disgusting and lethal spider is not my number one choice of death. Are you aware of the meaning of _lethal_?"

The pack stared at their classmate at once. Isaac used to have a tendency to not to mince matter, even if the others feared to concieve their concerns.

"Isaac" joined Scott the conversation "as you know, I can’t force you to help even as your alpha. But we need you if we want success. If you stay here, than I’m going to be someone’s only assistant."

"And we all aware that eight-legs fellows are not Scott’s favourite." Added Stiles neglecting his best friend’s flushed cheeks.

The young beta had no chance to say no when he looked at Scott’s trustful yet begging features.

**-SDSDSD-**

"A spider, Stiles?" Derek studied the book in his lap skeptically.

"Don’t raise your eyebrows like that, Sourwolf! Yes, a spider. A djieien."

"And you declare this is a real living thing."

"Not just me, but that book in your lap states the same." The werewolf elegantly ignored the teen’s remark.

Derek placed the massive book to the top of the desk and stood up from the comfy though ancient sofa which appeared to be almost the only furniture in the loft. He folded his arms in front of his chest as smirked playfully to the younger man.

"Sounds more like a dijon mustard, not a real threat."

Stiles fought with the urge to standin front of the werewolf, stare into his hazel eyes and… And bash him on his face as an answer to Derek’s annoying grin. Especially as he had no clue how the man was able to act so _naturally_ after everything what happened between them. Stiles wanted to shake Derek and demand him to speak about the kiss. Or repeat it. Morover, he eagered to do it again. And again. Many time. Many many time. In a row. But for now, he would be satisfied with that bloody date too.

Instead, he very much just tried to avoid being lost in the sight of Derek’s moving lips. He tried, but failed becauseit was impossible to not stare at the werewolf’s mouth. The teen swallowed anxiously to ease the ~~sexual~~ tension and playfully punched Derek’s granite-muscled arms. As a result of his act, Stiles felt his fingers had met with concrete. He formed a silent ’ouch’,then tried to shaking out the pain out of his sore digits.

Since Derek obviously smirked on his misery, Stiles flsuhed, and he began to talk rapidly. "That would be nice to not laughed at other’s pain!" He gestured animatedly in front of the man’s nose. "This is a serious situation, which requires _proper_ behaviour. Adult and all….So,just stop to act like …like a… like this..."

"You mean, like a miss?"

For a moment the young druid freezed as he had seen Derek’s unflinching eyes and steady face until he discovered a tiny smile hidden in the corner of the curve of his lips.

Stiles absolutely adored those small, nearly noticable signs of the werewolf’s joy, and even if the threat caused by this strange monster was knocking in their door, he hoped for the quickest solution, because he was determined to invite Derek to a date after they would finish..

Their plan was simple and fit in with those discussed with the others.

Derek played the part of the bait: his task was to distract the giant spider’s attention. Meanwhile Stiles climbed up to a fairly picked top of a tree to cast a spell onto a bough and thrown it to the ground, since according to the odd myth of the djieien his heart soaked with malice is hidden somewhere in the earth and this is the only way to expose its location to kill off.

Several events happened when they arrived to the glade, and several of them would have been prevented, though the chain of events somehow all led to tragic.

Stiles reached the top of the tree too late. By the time he started to chant he had seen Derek bleeding from dozenswounds. The young druid concentrated with all of his willpower to expel the voices of breaking bones and tearing meat out of his mind, yet he wasn’t able to. He rushed, and cursed the moment when his trembling fingers dropped the semi-enchanted brig and he had to start the procedure from the beginning.

Derek persisted. He was battling with the monster with the knowledge that if he would lost, thant the creature would feast on not only his, but the flesh of Stiles.

Maybe it was the result of exhaustion. Maybe it was faith… None of had known how the center of the werewolf’s tight descipline broken for a moment. Although the spider used this tiny slip of Derek’s focus and turned against him sneakily and wickidly, attacking from the back.

Stiles froze as he witnessed the scene. With its blade-like legs the creature impaled Derek and filled his cells with toxin, inhibiting his healing.

The druid screamed in a cord with Derek.In the same time he slipped between the leavesstill holding that damn enchanted branch and he fall, fall and fall. The ground opened up and he landed on a mucus-covered, rotting pile of meat what he began to jab without a blink.And he pounced. And pounced, and pounced. The djieien was dead by the time of the second strike, though Stiles continued to hammering down the blob what used to have the heart of the monster until the members of the pack arrived to the area.

He didn’t want to get up. He didn’t want to do anything, because he was aware without cheking Derek’s vital signs, the werwolf stopped to breathe. He wouldn’t answer anymore. He had gone.

_His_ Derek had gone _._

Stiles’ world collapsed.


	3. Chapter 3

Stiles stood before the remains of the Nemeton. Even the sight of the once mighty tree had his heart squeezing in his chest, as if the Nogitsune were once again trying to darken his soul by digging into it’s deepest, darkest corners. Were it any other day or any other time Stiles would have let his emotions get a hold of him.

But according to the ancient books, the Nemeton was the key to what he was about to do. The tree that called out to all things supernatural like a beacon, a torch to light the crossroads between life and death, and the door that led to Hades and the Land of Souls and also to Tartaros. He knew what he was about to do was nothing less than to ignore and overturn some of the oldest rules of nature and life. He had done his homework – had dug up every single source and scrap of information he could find, both from old tomes and from the deepest corners of the internet – he knew what he was doing. He also knew there was going to be a steep price for his actions. But whatever that price would be, he decided it wouldn’t matter. No pain or sacrifice could be compared to the burning, empty chasm that Derek’s death had left in him.

Stiles stared for a few moments with glassy eyes, then shook himself and started the preparations. Because what else could the solution be? The last solution? The one that had no respect for any god or man. Somewhere deep down he could almost hear Derek’s frustrated sigh and his gruff opinion on how he was an idiot for even trying.

He could _almost_ hear it.

Stiles’ eyes wandered without his conscious permission to the distinct black bag laying not far from the trunk of the tree. The black bag that he sneaked out of Beacon Memorial’s morgue last night. The bag that left very little to the imagination concerning its contents.

Movement slow as molasses he walked closer to the body. Closer to Derek. He felt the universe stopping for a moment to give the teen a few seconds to collect himself before Stiles’ fingers reached out to loosen the zipper.

A sorrowful sigh left his lips as he took in the werewolf’s bloody visage, his stiff, deathly pale features a dreadful contrast to the dark stubble covering his cheeks. Stiles’ right hand moved unbidden to shift one of Derek’s black locks from his forehead, his fingers softly trailed down the wolf’s familiar face, lingering for a moment at the crook of his neck, as if looking for a sign of a pulse. He still couldn’t believe the man was no more. Finally his hands traced down to Derek’s cut up henley and grabbed a fistful in white-knuckled agony as a hopeless sobbing wail finally broke loose from his chest.

Minutes went by like this. The noises of Stiles’ grief slowly faded and gentled into the sounds of the forest, finally ending in complete silence as the air around him began to change. Stiles kneeled before the werewolf, eyes tightly shut, completely lost in a maelstrom of memories. As his palm rested on Derek’s chest – no longer squeezed tight in their grip of the olive green fabric – his mind filled to the brim with Derek’s scent, the sound of his soft voice, his oh so rare laughter, Stiles felt the magic of the forest and the Nemeton calling out to his own spark.

 

All his remaining doubts concerning his plan faded with the call, all his fears put to rest. As the wind picked up around him, turning the air ice cold, and as the magic inside him blazed to life like a wildfire he knew, there was no turning back. This power felt different from what Deaton or Marin Morrell knew and wielded. This power, this _something_ was Stiles _himself_ : his own raw, elemental magic, the one that only abided by his laws and limits.

He brushed the last remaining tears from his eyes. The Spark that straightened up from beside a motionless Derek had the expression of a man who has nothing left to lose. Stiles stood for a moment enjoying the icy wind, then reached for the bag and softly lifted the werewolf’s broken body and laid him beside the Nemeton, adjusting his limbs with infinite care.

An electric buzz filled the air, making him feel like a focus point, through which all the land’s essence flowed. This feeling caught him unawares every time. It was at once awe inspiring and inexplicable to feel all that raw power in his hands. He’d tried to explain it so many times to Derek, made him watch any slightly famous fantasy film containing a single mage or wizard to help him understand. Stiles even let him take a peak at some of his most treasured and secret tomes from his personal collection. Even now he could almost see how Derek’s brows would furrow from concentrating so hard, trying to understand the complex texts he was reading, making him seem almost like an inquisitive child. Now, haunted by but also hanging onto this memory he dug out some mountain ash and a dagger from his backpack. He took a deep breath and sliced his left palm.

The pain at first was sharp, then it softened to a dull thud as Stiles’ blood started to flow with an almost languid ooze. His lips formed the memorized latin words, some part of his mind hysterically laughing at the absurdity of his situation and at the cliché nature of what he was doing – after all, what other language would be more appropriate for bringing back the dead than a dead language itself? Crimson drops flowed from his palm and formed a perfect circle around the young druid, Derek and the Nemeton, granting them all both protection from any outside harm and sealing everything happening inside.

The frigid wind howled through the teen’s red hoodie, freezing him down to his bones – a form of protest from nature itself against what he was about to do. Stiles started to shiver, his mouth going blue as the blood around him started to form symbols as if guided by an invisible hand. When they were done, the drops blazed as a quasi warning sign, then burned into the ground with a hiss accompanied by the gut churning smell of burnt flesh, finishing the circle created by nothing more than the will of a desperate man.

It could have been the cold or the adrenaline but Stiles barely felt when he dug the dagger once again into his palm and carved the looping lines that were required to finish the spell into his own arm. Of course it hurt and he had no idea what made him able to stand tall and finish. The image of having his beloved sourwolf once again beside him without all the weight of the world on his shoulders cut as deep into his mind as the symbols engraved into his flesh.

Before his body finally gave out from bloodloss, he threw the mountain ash into the air, sealing him and Derek’s body once again into an impenetrable circle keeping all supernatural threats out.

As the ash fell, Derek’s heart started beating once again, and the world faded black before Stiles’ eyes. **  
**


	4. Chapter 4

Stiles couldn't tell how much time might have passed between his Frankenstein defying experiment and his fainting. It must have been at least a few hours;itwas already dark now. He felt lightheaded. Cautiously getting up on his feet he struggled with dizziness caused by the shock and the blood loss.

The boy was doing his best not to be reunited with his dinner. He rubbed his eyes with his index fingers to erase the stars from his vision when he realized that freezing cold was gone, or at least he couldn’t feel it anymore. This was when his brain was flooded by the images of the last hour. He turned around in a half-axis pirouette so rapidly that he stumbled in his own feet and and fell to the solid ground. His bottom was aching. Massaging it Stiles started climbing to his feet with difficulty but when reached a kneeling position he found himself facing a… Well, a huge black wolf, that was observing him peacfully.

"Jesus!"Stiles backed away in a crab walk. "Hey, hello! Who are you?"

The wolf watched the boy’s clumsy moves with a slightly tilted head. Its large hazel eyes glowed intelligently in the moonlight.

"I have no idea how you breached the protection circle."

The wolf raised its eyebrows judgingly. Stiles knew for some reason what the animal was trying to communicate with him: " _You really want to discuss such trivial matters?"_ He would start feeling intimidated when he realized what has been bothering him all the time he saw the wolf’s morose lines:do wolves even have eyebrows?

"Ok, fine. I can see you don’t want to explain that. Not if you even could physically. Also I’m insane talking to an animal. After performing a resurrection ritual. That’s not a bit surprising. Or unusual; in fact, it’s quite ordinary. What’s even my problem? Or have I gone mad and are you a manifestation of my craziness?" The wolf growled. "Jesus! Don’t look at me like that! You are completely like Derek."

When at last Stiles stood up followed by the wolf’s gaze, he could finally examine what position he put himself into.

First, of course, he ran to Derek. Intoxicated by the happiness, he noted the success of the first half of his plan with content: the man’s chest was shallowly but visibly rising and falling. Not counting his injuries and torn clothing Derek looked like as he was in a relaxing dream. He was over the moon for a moment. A wafe of intangible feeling rushed through him: a strange mixture of liberation from dread, joy grafted into relief, success and hope. The man’s beating heart gave the young druid new strength and opportunity. A new source of powers emerged in Stiles, powers he neverhad knownhe possessed. It was for him as if he got a tiny part of his soul back. Not the whole though, since the werewolf’s spirit still wandered far from his body.

The knowledge that Derek – his Sourwolf – breathes, like a new sun, lit up new possibilities, giving Stiles a new hope again. He couldn’t tell why he felt that way. His need for the smallest flicker of the other man’s existence was inexplicable for him. There was no rational reason but without Derek, he felt incomplete.

Only after he made sure that considering the circumstances Derek was alright – compared to death being undead counted as development by Stiles’ standards – did he really survey his surroundings.

He scanned the circle at least twice but still couldn’t believe what he saw. He ran his hands through his shaggy hair making things even worse. He decided after a few unsure steps that his legs cannot bear the weight of his body anymore, so he sat in the middle with his legs crossed and Nemeton’s stump behind him, on his left, Derek, andin front of him… _himself_. His own body lied there. That thing in front of him couldn’t be anything else, as it had his features and wore his clothes – a thin adolescent boy with ruffled hair under a red hoodie andworn sneakers. He counted twice but even the number of birthmarks on his face was the right number.

At first Stiles thought he got himself into some convoluted spacetime paradox from which not even the Doctor with his TARDIS could save him. Next he thought he killed himsef during some time travel accident, or maybe the victim was his evil twin. He only realized that he said all this outloud when the black wolf nudged his arm. It laid down curling up around Stiles. The boy automatically dug into his pitch-black fur with his hands, and the animal closed his eyes with satisfaction.

"Ok, ok, you are right, I couldn’t have killed my evil twin. Mostly because that _stuff_ there… I mean, that _thing_ which is _me_ , breathes. _I breathe._ Or we. You know, buddy, nowhere in books or on the internet was it described that necromancers’ soul were ripped out from their bodies. I have never met anything like this before. What if I screwed up something and…, and…" Panic began taking over him. The wolf cuddled closer to Stiles, its steady heartbeat helped calming him down preventing a panic attack. "So, what if i’m stuck here – don’t know where – and I’m undead too? I don’t want to participate in some kind of Walking Dead. The series is one thing, reality is another. It’s possible Deaton was right, maybe raising the dead wasn’t a good idea after all, and maybe I should have told Scott where I was going, and…"

The black wolf plain simplicity licked the boy’s face. Stiles was so shocked by this turn of events, that his brain rebooted from the former torpor.

"I agree, I must stop panicking, it leads nowhere. Although later you could let me know in a less slimey, more germ free way what you want. What I need now is clear judgement and logic. In this situation it is completely irrational to want to think rationally, since the condition of rationality fails when I’m talking to you about it." The air almost glowed around Stiles as he chanelled his nervousness talking to the animal.

His amber eyes were searching the wolf, who warned him with a small bark, nodding in the direcion behind Stiles’ back.

"I don’t even know why I trust you. Why am I _talking_ to you at all? Maybe because of Derek, but maybe…Omg. OMG. Wow."

As he turned around for the wolf’s insistence, the druid tree came into his view.

The Nemeton was a mystical place in itself, with the sense that in it’s former glory, thousands of miracles should have happened under the enormous canopy sprawling with life. Today only a small layer of its trunk was visible above the ground, but still one could feel the dance of the oscillating ancient forces in the air around. Bathing in the waxing moon’s light, the thousand growth rings gleamed silverly on the trunk.

It was an exquisite sight, impressive, extraordinary and full of promises.

As if the wind split around the former tree, something otherworldry was to be seen. Like a fissure in the fabric of the aether, faint fragments of alien vistas emerged. The ripples in the air hinted of an entrance to a wild universe.

And this mirage was not just a trick of the light.

Stiles not only did bring Derek’s body back to life, but he also managed to conjure a pathway into Hades. As he reached towards the rift with trembling arms, the took a last look of farewell at the man breathing quietly between the roots of the stump.

"Derek… I promise, anything I have to do, I will come back. I swear on everything I can."

In the odd company of the wolf and with these words on his lips he stepped between the seams of nature and headed deep towards the unwelcoming world of Hades.


	5. Chapter 5

Stiles kind of expected the _'All hope abandon ye who enter here_ ' line and the huge emerging fire columns and the horned devils with their pitchfork as they poke the tortured evil souls standing in the fiery pot. Instead, he got a corridor which just went on and on and compared to the expectation, it was quite disappointing.

"And what do we know about the Underwold, anyway?"He asked the rhetorical question from the wolf trudging next to him. "That it’s freacking hot in there. But not the good ‘Lydia Martin smiled at me when I was in second grade and I felt hot all over’ kind of hot. You know what I mean"stopped Stiles to blink to his companion. "Or this is not how things work in the furry-spirit animal land? Cause I’m thinking you might be some kind of familial. I’ve heard about that if someone goes into the trans-like state my body most likely is, then they need something to bind them to reality and lead them on their way, so they can find their body again. I think this is you." Stiles sighed."But it still doesn’t explain why you aren’t a fox. Deaton once made me summon my familial, and it definitely looked like a fox. The two familials might not be the same? Or spirit animals and familials are different? You really could give some clue! Don’t you wanna speak Sourwolf?"

Stiles didn’t even realise whose name he said. The wolf looked over his shoulder to the boy and rolled his eyes as an answer and continued his way like it doesn’t care if the other follows or not.

"I’ll take this as a hard no" Stiles couldn’t stay silent for long“but be honest, do you think the Hades looks like this? Because it’s kind of... disappointing? Depressing? Disillusioning? My childhood dreams are crushed because there is nothing here. We’ve been walking down a disgusting gunky brown corridor for half an hour... ok, just ten minutes, but this is not what I expected. If you are my spirit guide or what, you must agree with me. It’s your duty! So, move your left ear or give me a high five."

The wolf stopped turning its ear like it heard something others wouldn’t. It ran off like a bat out of hell, leaving Stiles behind.

"Hey, wait!" The teenager ran after the animal while shouting. “I didn’t mean that high five, I just had to make a dog joke, because Derek...” he started to run out of breath. “Because he would have hated it.”

He tried to catch his breath with his hands on his knees. Even with lacrosse practices, he hated sprints. Luckily the wolf slowed down and turning his nose up it sniffed the air.

Stiles’ furry company didn’t stop by chance: the corridor widened into a huge room, from which thousands of slim corridors led to who knows where. The place reminded Stiles to when he was forced to play an almost whole life long game with the Nogitsune, trapped inside his own mind. It was immensely sterile and too... brown. The boy didn’t understand why would the colour's of Hades looked like Greenberg’s socks after a particularly muddy, Coach Finstock-supported, rainy lacross-game. His eyes were searching through the corridors, trying to figure out where to now, because it was obvious they have to continue to somewhere.

The whole place looked like the start of a labyrinth spread to infinity. Four bigger roads led to the circle-shaped room they were standing, cutting each other in the middle in an X shape. Stiles realised that the bigger roads divide into smaller ones with different doors at their end. He had a thought and looked up hoping he would get a better understanding of the room’s bizarre shape.

"Ok, I got it!" Turned back to the waiting wolf. "Look up! I think we’re inside the Nemeton. Not like inside inside, but still there. Do you get it?"

As an answer he got a question mark shaped tail and a sneezing-like sound as if the wolf tried to say _'Stiles, this makes no sense'_.

"What if" started explaining the boy with his usual gesticulation "this is the part of the Nemeton belonging to the non-physical world. If we’re really going towards Underworld, but we’re not there yet, and this is the real entrance? The room is shaped exactly like that damned tree trunk, moreover, the junctions are like its root. So, what if we have to choose where to go forward? And this could also be a task. Because I read I will have to complete different tasks..."

To Stiles’ utmost surprise the wolf started growling. For a moment he got frightened that he trusted too easily in the unknown being when he noticed where it’s looking.

He saw a woman coming towards them. Her blond, wavy hair framed a model-like delicate face. Her provocative mini skirt and a deeply cleavaged white shirt highlighted her perfect form, leaving nothing to imagination. She had a leather jacket thrown over her left shoulder and her eyes were covered with sunglasses despite the darkness around them. She had painfully familiar movements.

“Erica...” he said the young girl’s name almost reverently. “Erica is that really you?!”

A dangerously mischievous smile appeared on the alluring lips.

“Catwoman at your service, Batman!” saluted to the dumbfounded boy.She laughed richly and as if it wasn’t weird that they met under these circumstances, she fell into Stiles' arms."Did you miss me, pretty boy? And tell your wolf I’m not a real cat so it doesn’t need to growl at me."

"What... how... why..." Stiles opened and closed his mouth like a fish landed on shore. "Erica, how did you get here?"

The girl laughed sharply throwing her golden locks behind her.

"It seems that in the afterlife being a bitten werewolf isn’t the coolest thing. But, it’s worse for the born wolves. But don’t worry about me, it’s not that bad here."

Stiles frowned confused.

"What are you talking about? You are in Underworld... You... Shouldn’t be here! You shouldn’t even have to die, but if it still happened, how could you get to hell?"

"You’re sweet for thinking this." She brushed brown hair out of the boy’s forehead, then she crouched next to the relaxing wolf at Stiles’ legs. "Hello, Derek!” And she started scratching the wolf’s ears."

Stiles didn’t even know where to start, he had too many emotions and questions inside him. At last, he chose the least rocky subject, hoping he’d have time to collect himself.

"Don’t offend it, it doesn’t have to do anything with Derek. Wolf is just my companion. My familial or spirit animal or whatever you'd like to call it."

"You don’t offend him! I know you’re Derek, don’t worry!" And she gave a kiss on the wolf’s nose, who started sneezing at that. "You’re a fool, Stiles if you don’t see what or who is this animal. But you were always stubborn and foolish, ever since I’ve known you. If you’d like then, by all means, pretend that it’s only a simple familial, who connects you to reality."

If Stiles has more time he would have thought longer on his former friend’s words, but he could solve the mystery of the wolf joining him instead of the fox spirit later. Now he wanted answers, and maybe Erica can give him some.

"What is this place? Where am I exactly?" he turned to the girl. "This doesn’t really seem like Hell."

"Because it isn’t. Don’t confuse the concepts! I wish we could sit down. What do you say?" And without waiting for an answer she sat down on the ground in her mini skirt. "What? Don’t look at me like that! I can’t get cold, and this could take long. Come on bat boy, let’s shake things up! So, this whole place which consists of Hell and Tartarus is Hades or Underworld, if you’d like. Underworld is the bigger circle which includes the aforementioned smaller two. The backtreaders, for example, are in Hades. They are the spirits, who couldn’t leave their Earth lives. The Hell is a little tougher, you can find quite nasty things..." Erica clicked her tongue. "You know, the usual: guilty souls, whose doings are bad enough not to get forgiveness, or they don’t feel like they are guilty. What you’re interested in is Tartarus. I know your little secret. If you wanna catch Derek’s soul, you need to get there. I don’t know much about that place, cause its leader is the Three-faced Hecate Goddess, whose cruel arms can’t reach here."

Stiles had a thought at that.

"How do you know that I’m here for Derek’s soul? And I still don’t understand what you have to do with anything."

"Oh, Stiles... My sweet, sweet Stiles. Yous still haven’t figured it out?" She jumped up to her heels with panther-pattern, that the teenager couldn’t imagine how she hadn’t broken her ankles yet. "This, here" she showed around dramatically “is the Lymbo. Hell’s porch.And as for who am I? Naturally, I’m your own Virgil. The why am I here... well, you have to ask it to yourself. Because this whole thing, batguy, is your own Hell. With your imagined look and sins, everything here is your mind’s darkest parts coming alive."

The girl looked up and turned to one of the corridors as if she heard something Stiles didn’t.

"I have to go now" the young woman’s body started fading. "I can’t accompany you all the way, unfortunately, this is all the time I got to talk to you. One last thing, whichever door you’ll open, you’ll find something you’re scared of. As in the fairy tails, you have to complete three tasks in Hell to get to Tartarus. You became the youngest prince! If you reach Hecate’s realm, and you overcome yourself, you get to take Derek’s soul back to the surface."

"Erica wait, I still have so many questions!" The young druid grabbed a transparent arm.

"I have to go! They are calling me... Good luck! And don’t forget: Hell is empty, the demons are only in your head."

Stiles was left alone with the wolf without the chance to thank the girl for her help. He couldn’t let Erica’s all endeavour and advice fall to deaf ears.

He has chosen.

He started confidently with the wolf by his side towards one of the blueish doors, just to doubtingly turn the doorknob and enter to Hell itself.

 


	6. Chapter 6

Stiles was not sure what he expected. Definitely not that upon entering the room he would come to face with a mischieviously grinning Peter Hale. The man was sitting on a comfortable looking couch with his legs crossed. In his right he was a television remote control, in the left a bowl full of popcorn was balancing, which he precariously placed on the armrest.

"You..." Stiles started intelligently, although to his excuse he was surprised by the scene.

"Me" nodded Peter with friendly calmness. He waved in the direction of the couch with the remote in his hand. "If I were you, I would take a sit, Stiles. The fun part is just about to start. You shouldn't miss it. That would be a... shame." He winked at the teen and switched on the modern, flat screen television.

Stiles blushed. He wasn't certain why, but he was annoyed by the fact, that Peter Hale, who bit Scott against his will, who murdered his own niece, who almost killed Lydia's, who made Derek's life misarable at every possible chance, he showed up here, with a look of perfect innocence at the start of his trials. How has he harmed to universe to be punished this way?

"What are you doing here, Peter? Unfortunately, even though we tried, we failed to erase you from the living. So, why are you in Hades?"

"Come on, Stiles," grimaced the werewolf, who many times has returned from the dead. "Don't be stupid. I'm not used to you being the dumb one, it's Scott's duty. How the hell should I know what I'm doing here, when we are supposedly in your hell. Who am I to question the reason of being in your head? And by the way," he snarled briefly at Stiles. "It might have something to do with you having sex with my daughter. Could it be that nature decided its finally time for a fatherly discourse?"

Peter was staring at the boy through half-closed lids, like a wolf, waiting to strike. Stiles swalowed hard.

"I..."

"Oh no!" Continued Peter uninterruptedly, his eyes gloomed in a cool blue tone. "I almost forgot, you had broken up with my daughter before you could have been the newest member of my lovely family.

The werewolf jumped towards the boy with extended claws. Stiles would have never survived had the wolf, that had been curled up in the corner up til then, not jumped in front of him, appearing even larger with his ruffled fur. Peter startled back from the fierce animal and the strong protective magic emanating from him.

"Well... What an interesting companion you have here! In this case, I'm afraid we need to stick to the original plan.”

With that, as if nothing had happened, Peter headed back to the couch lifting the bowl of popcorn to the top of the table and fixed his eyes to the screen.

"Hurry up, Stiles! I'm going to eat all of it by myself if you aren't quick enough.”

It was only then that Stiles properly looked at what was happening on the screen and the sight made the blood freeze in his veins. He did not expect to see Derek and Malia in a deadly fight.

It wasn’t the sort of battle they played during their training sessions. The way they were attacking each other had nothing to do with playing. Malia was trying with all her might to take a bite out of Derek while the werewolf was desperately trying to shake off the girl.

 “Well…” Peter perched his lips. “I don’t know how you feel about it, but I would bet on Malia. If she’s only half as fiery as her mother, then my dear only nephew is in quite a fix. What’s the problem?” he spread his arms seeing the shocked look on Stiles’ face. “I’m not a sexist. Long live equality, and all that. So, is the bet on?”

 “I would rather bet on this wolf right here ripping your throat out in a minute” answered the boy with fuming hatred.

 “Don’t be such spoil sport! This role only fit for my late nephew. I’m starting to miss his sour face in the mornings.” Peter turned his attention back to the television and hissed at the sight. “Ouch, this must have been painful! But that is love, makes a man do crazy things. As they say, to be young is to be foolish… I hope you are enjoying the show, Stiles. This is all for you. Popcorn?”

The boy was filled with dread. In the terrible movie, Malia was standing on Derek’s neck shouting. The girl’s otherwise pretty features were unrecognizably distorted by hatred. Stiles would have never thought to see her, whom he once loved, in such a state.

The words between the man and the werecoyote were inaudible, but Peter turned up the volume with a press of a button. “Oh, what a dummy I am, it was on mute.”

_“M…l…ah… st…p!” gurgled Derek before grabbing Malia’s legs and freeing himself with a swift move._

_The man was trying not to hurt the girl in the battle but the she was fighting with determination. In a sudden moment Derek secured a hold on the girl’s arms and twisting them behind her back he pressed her against a nearby tree._

_“Why are you doing this?”_

_“You…” the werecoyote panted, “you stole Stiles from me. He is mine.”_

_“I don’t think Stiles is anyone’s property.”_

_“But he belonged to me. He was mine. You, Derek Hale only noticed him when he was with me and loved me.” With that the young woman tore herself out os the werewolf’s grip and without thinking headbutted him._

_The blow made Derek dizzy for several minutes._

_“You will pay for this, Derek! I’ve seen, how Stiles was looking at you, and I’ve heard him talk about you. You seeped into his mind.”_

_Malia’s words conjured an image on the screen. Trees like grotesque bones were reaching twistedly towards the darkened sky. Purple fog was billowing between the branches and slowly a silhouette of a couple emerged. Stiles recognized them as Derek and himself. It was them, but different. The werewolf’s body appeared ethereally perfect. He gazed in awe at his lover. The Stiles, whose waist was held snugly by the smoke-Derek’s arms, was in trance. His skin was almost sizzling with the magic flowing through his veins. The whole scene was mesmerizing, yet eerily unnatural._

__

_Meanwhile Malia continued._

_"You turned him against me. I know what perverse thoughts he had of you. I will kill you for that. I will rip your throught out and stuff your body with wolfsbane."_

_„Malia, this is madness” the wolf tried convincing the werecoyote. „It’s only the blinding anger and envy speaking from you. Stiles loved you and then it ended when you mutually broke up. And for heaven’s sake, he would never have cheated on you!”_

_„I have seen the looks he was giving you.”_

_Malia charged at Derek again, like if she was an offended, furious harpy. Without thinking she sank her claws into the man’s face carving deep through his flesh, just missing his eyes._

„Look at that! Now this is interesting!” Peter leaned forward on the couch. „I wouldn’t have thought you as such a baaad boy, Stiles. First Malia, then my nephew… Tell me more, what lustful thoughts crossed your mind when you were having fun iside my daughter’s body? And _who_ were you thinking about exactly?

“Oh, shut up, Peter! No one is interested in your commentary.”

The boy rushed to the screen. He didn’t know what he was looking for exactly, but he trusted he would find some reference to how he could stop this impossible battle. Unfortunately, it was in vain. Nothing was there to help him.

The problem with Peter and his words was that his effectiveness in intruding into others’ heads, and Stiles’ attempts to forget what he heard were to no avail. He planted the bug in the boy’s ears. Since – although he never said it outloud – he indeed has thought of Derek, also when they were together with Malia, even if everything else the man said was a lie.

 “There is nothing to be ashamed for, Stiles” smirked Peter. “I myself have never been against of taking certain liberties. But to fantasize about someone in secret while taking advantage of having someone else to satisfy your needs is a completely different question. Whatever I did, I did it openly. To lie, to encite envy and to turn your friends against each other in the name of lust.”

Stiles ran to the werewolf with the spirit wolf in his track. He could have strangled the beast or smash something to his head, only to never hear his voice again. His words hurt Stiles to his core. The boy not feared Peter anymore, he regarded him only as a nuisance lately. But now he remembered what gave the man his unusual power: the manipulative intelligence hiding in his words.

There was no handy object around to hurt Peter with, but his momentum drove Stiles forward towards the man eating his popcorn. He raised his arm to deliver an anger fueled punch to Peter. Just before it could have impacted his face, Peter grabbed the boy’s fist with a casual but swift move and threw him on the couch. In a cloud of popcorn,the wolf also joined the fight. The man was expecting this attack with a measured kick he sent the animal flying across the room. It landed with a painful whimper and didn’t move anymore.

“Sin, Stiles. This is what I wanted to tell you. Sin. You are worse than me, really. Take a look at it yourself.” With that, Peter grabbed the struggling boy’s face and forced him to the television screen with tormenting pictures. “Look what you have done: Derek and Malia are fighting; my daughter is killing your love, she becomes a murderer because of you. It wasn’t enough” he said through his teeth “that you let her believe in your love, you drove her to murder too.

Stiles was struggling. Erica’s words still ringed clearly in his mind: everything exists only in his mind, this all is just the creation of his guilt. He knew, Peter’s words were poison. Stiles had the will to try escaping but no luck. His eyes were jumping between the inanimate body of the spirit wolf and the screen. He had no intentions to give up, but Peter’s werewolf power has well surpassed his human body’s strength. His mind was so clouded, that magic was out of question. At least without anything to hold on to, with no anchor. And that he lost when the spark in Derek’s eyes faded during the encounter with the djieien.

The boy was afraid. Afraid that he must witness Derek’s death again. Afraid he will see Malia as the man’s killer. And he was afraid to confess that Peter was right: he was to blame for everything. But the scariest part was the realization of how much Derek has became the center of his life. That all this is happening only because Derek was his anchor, his mate, and his love. He couldn’t grasp why he had to journey this far, to the underworld to come to this understanding, when everything was in front of his eyes from the beginning.

Stiles saw as Malia forced Derek on the ground. The werecoyote’s sharp claws were hurling towards the man, targeting his throat. Peter’s strong fingers held his neck firmly, for him not to miss a moment as his girlfriend killed his love. In this madness he heard Derek cry for mercy, but this seemed to have no effect on her.

Stiles closed his eyes.

Time slowed to a crawl around him. Seconds transformed into minutes, minutes tamed to hours. All the time in the universe was waiting for the boy’s command to spring back into motion.

Stiles sank into his own rushing thoughts. Through his mind’s turmoil he tried to find a fixed point, the foundation of his magic, which according to Deaton makes him a spark. He felt a jerk on his chest. When he opened his eyes a thin silver line seemed to be drawn between him and the spirit wolf, that he hasn’t noticed before. As the wolf stood up, from the waves of his fur, silverly flames emerged. The wolf blazed with bright magical energy. For a moment Stiles saw his own fox prancing and chirping joyfully around his large friend. That was when he understood what Erica meant, and why the wolf has been so familiar to him. He was cursing himself for his blindness, as he was the last one to notice who his spirit wolf really was: even after death, a part of Derek stayed with Stiles to protect the boy.

The thought set his heart ablaze that Derek, who Stiles never expected to care for him, loved him enough to do that.

This was it. This was the thought that grounded the teen more than anything. The wolf was his anchor. _Derek_ was his anchor.

The young druid’s focus cleared as the fog of guilt and fear dissolved. At once time returned to its normal flow. Stiles threw Peter off as if he was only shrugging off a bug. The air was on fire around him as he charged at the screen with the spirit wolf in his wake. He didn’t know what he was going to do, he only knew that he had to stop Malia somehow.

The laws of nature are sometimes unpredictable. Logic and physics meant nothing when the young druid’s fingers reached where the screen should have been, and they gave way to pure, inexplicable magic.

The room, the couch, Peter and the ruins of the popcorn all disappeared into nothingness and Stiles found himself among the woods from the screen, with a woman, whose control was lost to her jealousy. She was about to draw the blood of the man who she believed to have taken happiness from her.

With Malia’s name on his lips, Stiles burst into the scene, flailing in the air before reaching the ground. The werecoyote turned towards the familiar voice with a confused expression on her face. Her claws lowered unthinkingly, giving Derek a chance to escape her grip. The three of them stared at each other and the air was frozen around them. But before any of them could have spoken, the spirit wolf appeared behind Stiles.

The ground moved, and a strong gust rattled the leaves on the trees as the familiar and the young Hale found themselves in the same reality.

This was a paradox.

A paradox that needed to be resolved.

Stiles was watching the wolf stepping up to him and then slowly, uncertainly moving towards his master, as if beckoned by an invisible hand. But before he could have reached Derek, the whole scene flickered and dimmed, and Derek and Malia disappeared into nothingness.

The wolf howled in complaint, searching for traces of Derek’s scent. Running around with his nose to the ground, he kept looking back at the boy, his eyes encouraging. “Come on, he was here, I can feel it. Derek was here! Together we can find him.”

 “Come here! That’s it, good boy” he praised the wolf, crouching down to him by the tree. He sank his fingers into the animal’s fur as it snuggled up to the boy with desperation and trust. “It is all gona be alright. We will find Derek. I promise.”

They fell asleep curled up to each other. The wolf, and the boy who ran with the wolves.


	7. Chapter 7

The first thing Stiles felt as consciousness returned was an uncomfortable cutting feeling in his left wrist. Come to think of it, in his right wrist as well. As he thought about it a little more, he realized both his ankles felt painfully restrained too. Because that’s what they were, restraints, he realized as he opened his amber eyes, which turned out to be a horrible idea because as soon as he did so, harsh white light blinded him. He blinked for a few minutes to clear his vision and was finally able to take in his surroundings.

There was nothing to see in the smallish square room he was in, except for the black pillar he was apparently tied to. And,of course, all the mirrors adorning the walls. Because there were mirrors. A seemingly endless number of them, all different shapes and sizes covering every surface – including the ceiling. In the spaces between his distorted reflections the walls were black as coal, lending the room a depressing air. The bleak aura was further enhanced by tiny spotlights that made the disfigured mirrorimages seem terrifying and bad in an inexplicable way.

All of Stiles’ nerves screamed at him to try and get out and run. His eyes kept looking for the black wolf, his wolf, whom he now knew to be the one he lost. However, the projection of the link between his and Derek’s soul had vanished, as if it had never been there in the first place. Stiles’ eyes darted around trying to find an exit while his fingers tried to loosen the knots on his ropes fruitlessly. He knew he shouldn’t have been there and that something horrible was about to happen. It was instinctual as well as obvious from his surroundings. He had to get out as soon as possible or there was going to be hell.

A strange feeling of deja vu creeped up on him as he caught a glimpse of a shadow moving from the corner of his eye. Its movements were hauntingly familiar in the way it creeped slowly with shuffling steps, reaching out with hands twisted in gauze. Stiles smelt the stench of rotting flesh and felt the eternal miasma of vengeance surrounding the creature like a cloud. Even if he had not met the Nogitsune and its boundless hunger for pain and strife before, Stiles would have known it was intelligent and infinitely cruel. Right now though, the only thing he felt was the bitter taste of panic. The sight of the Nogitsune reflected from every single mirror made the situation even more terrifying – the only thought on repeat in Stiles’ mind was _“Not again! Please, not again! Never again!”._

The panic attack came from nowhere as it slammed into him and Stiles was left helpless in it’s throes. His rationality and logic vacated his mind and the space left was filled by icy terror. Trying to regulate his breathing, he closed his eyes both in concentration and with the subconscious action of a child afraid in the dark, curled up on their bed, shaking under the covers, terrified of all the monsters in their closet and aware of every shadow’s movement. Under his closed lashes it was easier to lie to himself that all this wasn’t happening and if he’d just open his eyes everything would be back to normal, there would be no creepy mirror room, no Hell, no Nogitsune, only him sprawled out on Derek’s couch in the middle of a long Star Wars marathon with the pack.

Deep down he had hope that he’d wake up and laugh it all off. However he couldn’t ignore the sounds of the demon stopping right infront of him and the sound of it repeating one word first in a whisper then getting louder and louder: murderer.

„Stiles, Stiles, Stiles...,” started the demon, its baritone causing a daze and its breath making the hair on the back of the boy's neck to stand up. „Did you really think you could get rid of me that easily? Me, who has watched worlds burn? Me, who has driven millions to madness, enjoying the taste of their pain and bitterness? Me, who is so much like you that I felt the door open in your mind form thousands of miles away?”

Stiles could hear the deformed rhythm of his own breathing. He was unable to face his fear. Somewhere deep, locked in a cage of his mind, part of his common sense screamed at him and shook the iron bars, that this was not real and that he should try to escape. But he couldn’t remember a single spell or a reason to fight for. His own world seemed like a fog while he was listening to the creature whispering into his ear.

„You know, boy, I chose you because the uncertainty shone so bright in you, that I saw the opportunity right away.  But I found so much more in that foolish, overwhelmed head of yours!” the Nogitsune gently snickered. „How much doubt, how much fear you hide with your sarcasm. But you’re still afraid of being confronted with your sins and the truth about them. Don’t be a disappointment, Stiles! Fight, I want to see how the hope and the fight dieout in your eyes. Open them! Look at the truth. Who am I?”

He heard the whisper of the clothes and the gause sooner than he felt the creature’s hands on his face. The bittersweet smell of decay permeated his erratic breathing, sending him into even more of a daze.

„Who. Am. I? It’s not a hard question. Answer me!”

The boy shook his head.

„Answer me! Who am I?!”

The Nogitsune had enough of the game. It enjoyed toying with its victims, but the exciting feelings in Stiles were hidden behind his eyes. Its nails dug into the boy’s face forcing him to open his eyes.

Stiles’ eyes flew open but the scream got stuck in his throat. He stared into his torturer's amber eyes. He studied the mockingly familiar upturned lips, the tousled brown hair and the grayish-purplish mole-covered skin.

„I am...”

„Repeat it, louder!”

„I...,” his voice cracked. Stiles didn’t want to say what he knew from the start. He didn’t want to say it out loud, because he knew if he did, he’d open something in himself that would eat him up even more than his travel into Tartarus. And he didn’t want to say it, because he then had to admit things he had tried so hard to forget. „I... I am you,” he breathed finally. It was a simple sentence, a laughable sentence, a stupid sentence, he knew it. But there was nothing that caused him as much agony as saying it. Maybe not even Derek’s death.

_Derek_... for a second he could see the brown dotted green eyes flash before him. He could almost see the spirit wolf running towards him to help and he could almost hear Derek’s voice through the bond.

Almost.

The vision disappeared like it didn’t even exist. However there was the Nogitsune in his deformed skin. And all the mirrors that showed himself. Or not exactly himself, because he saw the demon’s darker features around himself. The sight was unbearable.

„You know what I saw the first time I entered your brain? Chaos squeezed into logic. Dread that you killed your own mother. Dread that your father knows this and blames you.”

The mirrors lit up like projection screens, all of them showing the same picture: Stiles’ mother in a white nightgown, barefooted, losing her mind to her frontotemporal dementia, flailing towards little Stiles, as the sheriff hugged her from behind. Her screams echoing around them „ _He tried to kill me! Killer! He tried to kill me!”_

The picture changed: Stiles’ mother was dead and his father put everything into his job.  And whisky. The sheriff was never drunk enough to hurt anybody, but after two glasses his tongue got a little lose after work. Stiles was barely eight when his father was working on a double homicide, a case not meant for an eight-yearold’s ears. That night the boy spent the night looking up the definition of murder. He remembered clearly his father’s half drunken analysis about how killing someone was the biggest sin anybody could ever commit. Killing someone we love, he said - like in the case of fratricide he was currently trying to solve - was not just a sin, but the deepest form of evil, especially if it happened with intent, following a plan.

With the appearing pictures, he once again relived the experience as he listened to the older man’s speech. He remembered as he hugged the sheriff and whispered “Dad, I’m gonna be a good man. _I’m not going to be a killer. I’m going to be a cop, like you._ You’ll be proud of me!” He remembered how the man cried hugging his son to himself and whispered what a good kid he was, how much he loved him and how he and his mother were so proud of him.

„Oh, Stiles what does your old man think of you now, now that there are three deaths on your hand? What does it feel like to commit the sin you swore to fight against?”

Stiles felt bile rise in his throat. His wrists hurt from the thousand ways he had tried to get free of his bonds. He tried to barricade his mind from the pictures, tried to tune out the painful words, but the fox-demon knew how to get Stiles to listen to them.

Stiles started to give up the fight.

„I can feel your strength waning, boy! You wanna know why you can’t get free?” The Nogitsune’s lips curled in an evil grin, contorting Stiles’ features. „It’s because you know the mirrors reflect the truth. You know you have a darkness in you. Don’t fight it!”

A soft whine came from somewhere far away. Stiles tried to locate the source but was unable to, the sound of the too familiar voice distracting him by calling his name once again. „Stiles! _Don’t listen to it_ …”

With a wave of the Nogitsune’s hand all the mirrors changed once again to reflect Stiles’ haunted face back at him, the dark bruises under his eyes making his features sharper. There was a mad light flashing in his eyes, and Stiles knew even before it happened what he was about to see. The sword of an Oni, glistening with deep, dark blood made to look almost black in the shadows, sticking out of Scott’s chest, and Stiles’ gleeful, almost euphoric face as he pushed the blade deeper into his best friend’s body.

“The only reason Scotty didn’t die that day was because I needed him, or we - as in you and me - needed him. You know what I felt when you did it? I felt you enjoy the way the sword cut through vital organs. You wanted Scott to hurt, just like you hurt when you get human wounds for him. You wanted revenge. I’ll tell you something, that enjoyment you got out of it? It could have fed me for a life. Look at yourself Stiles!” the Nogitsune grabbed the boy's neck and turned him towards the middle mirror. “This is you: a killer. A man who wants others’ death who is excited by death and the possibility of killing. That’s why you tried to kill your best friend, that’s why you were the one to sacrifice Allison’s life, and you are the cause of that idiot werewolf’s death. What was he called again? Derek? Not that is matters. What matters is that you are guilty. And I love torturing guilty souls. Let me in! Accept what you are. Let me in and I promise you the universe.”

Stiles stared into the mirror spellbound, his eyes almost blacked out by his pupils. Somewhere deep inside he was aware he opened the door to the monster which he thought to be closed. The white in his eyes almost disappeared and acceptance dominated his mind when he felt a pull at his heart.

It felt like someone trying to revive him by restarting his heartbeat, but not only by pressing onto his chest but straight onto his heart. The feeling was weird, unpleasant and warm. His exhausted body felt like being electrocuted: he felt the pull again.

A shape appeared in one of the mirrors: a shiny shape, shining silver as the moon, ran through the mirrors, just to stop in front of the boy, covering his image.

It was the wolf. His wolf. The thread that bound him to Derek.

The animal howled like it was calling his pack. The sound reached into the druid’s bones and the fog started to disappear. But the Nogitsune didn’t give up. Stiles felt like he was being torn in two.

Just when he thought he couldn’t stand it anymore and the wolf’s howling stopped, he heard a whisper.

_“Stiles don’t give up please! Listen to my voice, whatever you see, it’s not real!”_

“De...rek?” Stiles said the werewolf’s name with dry lips. He didn’t know how it happened - and who was he to question the rules of magic - but Derek stood screaming at him in the middle mirror instead of the wolf.

_“This isn't real, Stiles! It is lying! Please don’t give up!”_

It was like thousands of miles were between them and Stiles knew Derek was dead, so he couldn’t be there,but as the man disappeared and morphed into the wolf once again, Stiles looked at his own face, and his eyes shone honey-like on one half of it as he fought for his mind. Then he decided.

Derek was his hope. He came for Derek. Only the man mattered, not himself. His love. He had to pull himself together.

His power flowed through his veins like a tide. He grabbed for the shining hope and let all of his power loose exploding the mirrors into thousands of pieces. For a moment the air froze: he practically saw in slow motion as all of the shards he controlled flew towards the Nogitsune. He gave in to his rage, fear and fury, turning the creature of his nightmares into dust.

Stiles stood in the middle of the circle shaped room once again as the wolf in front of him wagged its tail in happiness. Then he fell to his knees and burrowed himself into the animal’s fur with a tired smile, and the next thing he knew, like many times that day, the whole world turned dark.


	8. Chapter 8

Stiles' exhausted mind has fallen into deep oblivion. Letting himself enjoy the calming warmness that surrounded his body, he beded his face into the softness and murmured ' _Just fivemore minutes, Dad_ ' with half-closed eyes.

He just startedto welcome the dreams again, when suddenly something cold and wet touched his face. His eyes poped out and leaned acutomatically for his basball bat next to his bed. Grapping the empty air, he started to realize that not only there wasn't any attack, he is not even in his bed. It appeared to be that the persumed pillow-blacket combo was actually the velvet-furred wolf, who cuddled around him, and the sudden touch was his attempt to wake him up.

Stiles has no memory when and how he teleported back to Beacon Hills, but he was laying on Derek's couch. Perplexed he looked around for some clues, but before he could make any assumption, he heard a noise and noticed the half-naked Derek coming down the strairs.

He probably just finished with his shower, beacuse some droplets still attached to his perfectly-sculptured muscules shining brightly. The werewolf noded at him, as the most natural thing in the world and left to the kitchen brewing some coffee for himself, not even gave a second glance to the boy's astonished face and the huge wolf head on his lap.

Stiles' mind turned off as Derek's impeccable bottom swayed away in front of him. He couldn't hold himself back, so juts let himself enjoy the view. For calming down his raging hormons, he took some deep breathes, and finally opened his mouth.

"You..." said the young druid showing his brilliancy, while launched after Derek. The man's brows jumped high as he glanced curiously at Stiles, giving that so familiar expression of him.

"You..."

Derek let out an annoyed sigh. It looks like supernatural powers not make you more tolerant towards early mornings.

"What do you want?" asked him, feeling visibly uncomfortable from the constant scrutinizing look. "Stiles, if you want something, open your mouth and use it. You are pretty good with this stuff, so now you are scaring me. Are you alright?"

The boy jumped so suddenly, even with his werewolf insitcts, he hardly managed to catch him. In a blink of an eye, Stiles pressed his lips against Derek's mouth. The kiss was desperate, wild, unexpected, refreshing and wonderfully sweet.

"Good morning you too sunshine! How did I earned this?" asked smirking satisfied. The way the boy adored it: playful, teasing and just perfect.

Yet, _something was off_. Stiles banished the though and responded the question instead.

"Because... I love you? You know..." he continued while cracking his hands nervously, "the head over heels kinda way. Going crazy for you. I feel I am going mad, if you are not beside me kinda way."

"Well, I am not saying, I am not flattered" said Derek and frowned "I like you too, Stiles, but we already discussed this."

Stiles tried to recall this memory, and some fragments started to come back, but Derek continued:

"I feel there is something else, that you still not sharing with me. I hear your heart beat. It is really fast."

"You died" admitted Stiles "I dreamt that you were killed by a giant, disgusting spider and I couldn't save you, then there was Malia, Peter, which is a paradox, and then the Nogitsune..." he sighed and collected himself.

"If there wasn't that wolf " pointed in the direction of the couch " and he did not save me and I did not hallucinate about you... then... then I don't even know what would actually be now. It _was_ crazy."

"What wolf?"

"Got the point, big guy, as always" sighed Stiles. "Anyway, don't you see him, he is resting on the couch. Although he might be invisible for your eyes. Well... since I became a druid, I gained some extra rewards for the new level. Like, my magically irresistibe smile and my lustful limbs. Unfortunately sometimes these can be less appealing, such as a familiar or spirit animal... or something like this."

As soon as he finished this sentence, something started to thinkling in his mind. _Something_ was off. He felt it. However he rejected it again, because Derek was here for him and most importantly; alive.

"I belive it totally makes sense that I am the only one who could see him. After all, he is _my_ wolf."

Derek's green eyes were shining brightly as he stepped closer to the boy and took his hands in his.

"So, is it a wolf?" he asked while his famous eyebrows formed a question mark.

"It's not suprising at all, actually. As for you dream, it wasn't real. You see? I am alive. Please, calm down and get dress, becuse we still need to deal with that spider thing. I assume you dreamt about this because we scheduled the hunt for today with Scott."

The blood froze in Stiles' veins.

He lookedaround nervously, looking for some sign that could reveal which day is it today. A calendar, a phone, smoke signals, etching on the wall, anything. However the loft's inventory was ridicolously/heartbreakingly minimal.

"Listen, Derek" he said uneasy "which day is it, today?"

"Tuesday?" he asked back perplexed. "But why are you asking?"

Stiles almost collapsed his legs weakening. Now, everything was clear. He wasn't at home at all and the offputting feeling came from the fact that Derek not only couldn't see but sense the wolf's presence. Panic took over his body, as an unsetteling though came into his mind. he might know already his next trial. But, that can't be real, can it? It just couln't happen. It must be the twisted humor of the universe, that he came back to _that_ day, when Derek died.

"Stiles, what are you waiting for? We should go."

"Erm... well... I ... I need to discuss something with Scott immediately. It's important. This plan is terrible. It won't work."

"What's wrong with the plan?" Derek asked back. "You know that the djieien appeared in multiple places, and we don't know where it will be tonight. It was even you, who suggested to split into pairs – I mean, that one group should be Scott, Kira and Lydia, as we know he..."

Derek cought meaningfully and continued "... is not fan of spiders."

Stiles rushed through his hair desperately, and started bitting his lips.

"Listen! You can't understand this, but please believe me. We shouldn't go out into the forest. You, must not go there."

He tried to snatch the carkeys out of the man's hand, unsuccesfully.

"Why? Because you had some crazy dream?" Derek asked. "It appears to be that you spent too much time with werewolves. Stiles, please..." signed then deeply "in my whole life I was wandering around in the forest. I literally know every inch of it. Its taste, its smell. If there is someone, who goes out to take down this beast, well, that must be me."

His ignorant behavior wasn't unusual. For Derek, kit was hard to trust others and he was unbelievably stubborn. Stiles knew this, and on an other day, he would admire his commitment, but this wasn't that day. Rage bursted through his body, almost blinding him.

"Oh, you arrogant, bull-headed pup! Don't you understand, that something terrible will happen, do you? _You will die, Derek!_ I saw it... I _was_ there... and I don't want to relive it again."

Meanwhile the werewolf already got his signature leather jacket, and he reached for the red hoodie to give it to Stiles. He stopped in mid-movement. The boy's word was fuel to the fire. With wounded pride he hurld the hoodie towards the druid-boy and marched to the door. Before leaving through it he turned back with a grumpy expression.

"If you don't mind, my arrogance and I would like to walk though this door and tell my death and their eight legs, that hell is lovely in this time of the year." He paused a little.

"If you change your mind, you know where to find me!" he continued and throw the Jeep's keys at the boy's feet. He picked up the Camaro's instead and stormed out the building.

It took few minutes for Stiles to finally comprehend the events, which started to play a cruel show infront of the boy's eye. He dashed out and run to his car as fast as he never did in his life. Adrenalin driven he flinged open the weary, babyblue car's door, and turnd the key so hard, it maked even Roscoe to groan. At least it sounded like that, and appeared that he refused to start as well. Deaton once mentioned that the only thing that makes this wreckage go and not fall apart is Stiles willingness and his spark that ignites the engine.

The boy started to beg to the ghost of Roscoe, and after a desperate half an hour the car's engine groumbled and he could finally drive off with his familiar on his side.

He took the weathered road with an insane speed ignoring all traffic laws along the way. Leaving his car behind he bolted towards the sadly well-known destination. Out of his breath and sweating like hell, he arrived to the egde of the field where the strange tree stood with the twitsed /twirrled marks on its trunk.

He hoped he was still in time. There was no option now, where Derek dies agian. Yet, when he stepped out of the woods, his instinct alarmed him, that there is something wrong. He couldn't see the djieien's frightening silhouette anywhere.

The smell of blood reached his nose before he could see Derek's body laying on the ground. Scratched, soaked in blood, lifeless.

A terrible wail left his throat. He screamed and sceamed until he couln't breath and still then, he wanted to push further. It was his sin, his fault, he was the only one who could stop him. If he just arrived a few minutes earlier, this would never happen. He knew it, yet, he was powerless.

At the end, it was his mind who turned itself off.

So it can wake up at Derek's couch again, on that Tuesday moring.

_Again, and again, and again._

It was like an unbreakable circle which had only one purpose: drinving the boy into madness. Stiles spent days upon days to save his love from death. Reasoned, lied, used magic. He would do anything in the world. However the time-warp was hard to break.

The only thing he could do was trying and trying again, while all his desperate attempt were destined for failure. It didn't matter if he talked with Derek first in the morning, if he believe him or not – although at first he thought this was the key to his success. In a short time it became apparent that it was as useful as which outfit Stiles decided to wear.

In those cases when the werewolf believedStiles’ warning and acted accordingly, something unpredictable happend at the clearing. The worst of all was the time, when Stiles could watch from the first row, how the monstrosity sucked the life out of Derek, while he was falling from the tree after an unsuccesful ritual – intermited abruptly by the breaking of the branch, that Stiles used as a stool. While he waited helplessly for the collision with the cold ground, he bitterly noted that even the way of the werewolf's death differed from time to time.

On another time Stiles decided that it will be Derek who do the magic. Luckily, this ritual didn't recquired advanced magical knowledge or abilities. As a yet-to-become druid, he chose to battle with the omnious beast. The plan went along pretty well, until Stiles stumbled over a root and felt on his face. He calmly waited for the djieien's strike, but this hare-brained, yet adorable, Derek jumped between the creature and him.

After his thirty-second attempt Stiles finally gave up. It was hopeless. In cases like this it was exactly Derek, who could help him in some way, and he was his motivation that deserved to be fighting for. Still, this was the day, when he decided he couldn't bear anymore to see the life fading away from the werewolf's eyes.

He kneeled down stoicly next to Derek's body, and held his hands tightly. While he was waiting for the well-known stupor that takes him away to start another pointless day, the cruel realization hit him; no emotion left in him but endless fatigue. That scared him, which set two new feeling in motion: hated and anger. It would be much more easier to let all of this go away rather than waking up again trying to make some changes and fail again. There is no escape from here. Still, Stiles Stilinski is not a quiter. He fights until his last breath.

He stole a kiss from Derek's lips and stood up with blazing fire in his soul/eyes. He waved his companion in. The spirit animal, who loyally followed him around, pressed agaist his side and looked up to hime with slightly tilted head and bright eyes.

"You know I wouldn't ask if it won't be necessary" he said crouching down to the animal and scrached its head. "There is no other option, and you know it too, do you? But if this is what I has to do in order to end this madness... then, I should let you go."

"I should let..." he continued but the end of the sentence wasn't more than barely audible wispers.

The wolf whined and pushed his nose to the boy's face. Stiles hugged the giant animal like a safety belt, while his tears ran down his face incontrollably. The only thing he could manage to say was ' _I am so sorry_!'.

The boy fiddled the thin, silver thread between his fingers. He knew that by cutting it, he will let go his love, his hope, his happiness fading away. Would that be enough for Hecate? Maybe this whole time-warp thing was a clever way for the Queen of Tartaros to see how he lose everything he has ever fought for. He knew all of it, sill couldn't take/make the next move.

At the same time, his wolf had no fear at all. He looked deep into the boy's eye and jumped towards yarn. He bit it in half, knowing Stiles wouldn' t be able to do it alone.

We all have these moments which burn into our minds, stucked in there for enternity. Then and there, in that minute, there was nothing else, just Stiles, the wolf and their slowly fading bond. Then and there, the whole world shook and froze life for minutes. Their life. Then and there something unexplainable for mere minds had happened. the boy who runs with wolves tore his heart out for a cause that might became true.

Watching Stiles tears runing down on his face, the wolf evaporated into nothingness.


	9. Chapter 9

Stiles was waiting. He wasn't sure what exactly for but for something after all the events. Maybe he was waiting for this whole nightmare to dissapear accompanied by festive music, drums and flutes.Maybe for Derek's body to wake from the dead and for them to walk off into the sunset. Maybe for the sneaking cat on the branch to hunt the singing bird down. He really didn't know what to expect. But he definitely didn't expect despite all his sacrifices for _nothing_ to happen.

However that was the exact situation: everything stayed the same. To be precise, not everything, because Stiles has now lost the wolf too. He was completely alone with a empty void in place of his heart and with the desperate feeling of hopelessnes.

He rose almost in a hypnotic state and half blindly from the trauma began walking aimlessly. It didn't matter where to go. After a while he stopped in his way and turned to the sky. The air started boiling around him as he raised his arms. He started shouting into the forest sending millions of leaves and rocks into a flight.

"HECATE! I, Stiles Stilinski in the name of all the world's magic call upon you and demand you to answer! What do you want from me? What haven't you recieved yet?"

The earth started shaking, as trees were pulled from the ground by an invisible force. Tormened they hung in the air with their roots facing the sky in an obscene manner. The dimly glimmering sun was completely blackened by the debris in the howling cyclone around Stiles.

"I summon you Hecate! In the name of ancient arts, in the name of all gods and demons, I call you by name, Governess of Tartaros, Queen of Nightmares, Witchcraft and Magic. Come at once and dare to face me! I command you to appear before me!"

After the last words left his mouth, the meadow, the forest, all the whirling trees, _everything in sight_ exploded to atoms. An opaque cloud of dust was floating all around for a moment. Then in a blink of an eye all of it collapsed into a small dense sphere floating above Stiles' extended hand. The orb radiated with intese cold.

All hope was lost.

No more illusions.

Nothing.

All was over.


	10. Chapter 10

Stiles burst into hysterical laughter, when the fog and the chaos he created disappeared and he realized he was in a white, columned hall, with the trunk of Nemeton in the middle.

_That damn tree. Again. What else._

He turned around when he heard the sound of footsteps behind him.

A beautiful young woman walked towards him. Her red hair was as flamboyant as the crazy scarlet of the sunsets. Her eyes sparkled with the most varied blues of the waters. Her skin was pale, her walk aerial. In her clothes the nature came to life: it showed the green meadows and happy animals, forest fires and the destruction caused by humans as well. 

"Hecate" said the young druid as she came to him. "Not that I don’t know that commenting on a woman’s wardrobe is dangerous, but I couldn’t help to notice that monstruous melodramatic thing you’re wearing. You might have to change your fashion designer."

The woman's tinkling laughter ran through the hall.

"Stiles Stilinski, the boy who runs with wolves! It's a real pleasure to meet you."

"I wouldn’t say the same, if you don’t mind. And by the way, I’d suggest you a decorator as well, because this place" he waved casually in the direction of the druid tree in the middle of the hall "is incredibly dull and unimaginative. Maybe you should do something with the creative division of Hell, because this stuff ruins your image."

Hecate’s eyes narrowed, then a demure smile appeared on her face.

"Oh, Stiles, we can help you with that easily. What about… maybe this?"

With the snap of her slender fingers the hall burst into flames, and in the middle on the Nemeton Stiles discovered a man. _Derek_. Derek was sitting there in almost a fetal position, cluthing his limb on the maimed trunk of the tree. It was an evil and cruel scene. Stiles knew there was nothing in the world that would frighten a werewolf more than fire. The situation intensified when in the glowing flames shapes of people outlined, and their faces became more visible as they were getting closer to the man.

Stiles only realized what was happening when in the first creature he recognized Talia, Derek’s mother. She begged the man to help her, save her from the fire, and Derek reached for her, not caring that he will burn too. He tried to save his mother, father, siblings, everyone who was there on that tragic day in the Hale house when Kate Argent set it on fire. No matter how many times it happened, Derek couldn’t resist to try to protect his loved ones… Only so that he would face again and again with horrorin his eyes that all his attempts failed, and he himself also burnt to death and rose like a phoenix from the ashes, starting the cycle again. 

"You sick, disgusting, evil bitch..." Stiles began cursing, but Hecate's fingers sticked on his mouth.

"Hush, little druid. You are in Tartaros, what did you expect? That your werewolf’s soul would fly with butterflies between pink clouds? Because this isn’t the place. Do you know why souls like Derek are here?"

Stiles shook his head.

"The question is valid, because why would someone who isn’t necessarily evil end up in the lowest and the darkest part of the Underworld? Do you know that according to the Greek legends, gods exiled here those monstrous creatures from whom they themselves were terrified?" The witch winked at the boy.

"You are saying that the reason why Derek is suffering here instead of chilling in Heaven, or what do you call it, because there is discrimination on the basis of birth here too? This is so sick that I would rather not comment on, and instead of a decorator I recommend that you read a few legal books on equality."

During the light-hearted chat Stiles prepared the spell step by step, by which he could drag Derek's soul out of the fire and take down the goddess. His fingers bent, and he began to grind the worlds in his mind. However, nothing happened.

He realized that Hecate's hot palms wrapped around her arms.

 "Stiles, stop it! You do not have to fight anymore, I'm not your enemy."

To his bewilderment, before he could say anything the skin of the hand on his arms started to change. The scared boy looked up, trying to figure out what was happening, and tripping on his own feet he fell back.

The Queen of Tartarus morphed into an elderly woman in a heartbeat. In her snow-white hair there were gray locks, an the previous gown changed into a simple white tunic. Stiles discovered that on one of the sleeves slowly started to appear a text written by black ink. 

"Wow, this ... This is interesting. I read that you have three faces, but I thought it was a myth only because you were usually depicted with three heads on a body ... Well, this picture is quite tolerable. What do you see?"

"Do not be crazier than you are, Stiles" said the woman with a pleasant alto.

"The future" Stiles pointed to the constantly growing writing on the sleeve. "You're the Future. The other one was Present."

"It's interesting to see where you're heading to, druid. But don’t worry, I won’t tell you, let it be a surprise.”

"You just said you are not my enemy. Please prove this by giving me Derek's spirit and letting us go."

She sighed and stepped closer to him, putting her hand on his shoulders.

"I won’t deny that you surprised me getting so far at all. It’s been ages since the last time someone sacrificed so much for someone else’s soul. In the past there were people from your king who came down here. They were courageous, bold, young, and they are so crazy about love as you are now."

"It's more than love” Stiles responded. "You know I owe responsibility for Derek's death, and his time wasn’t even up." There was a steady determination is his voice. "I'm _not willing to_ accept it _._ Too many people died for me. This... this is as much an atonement for my sins as a desire to give that grumpy moron that happiness he deserves after so many years of bitterness."

"You're not willing to accept it, you would sacrifice anything... Aren’t these worlds and promises too big? Really, how much does this soul worth you?"

"You've seen what's in my mind, don’t take me for a fool!"Stiles picked up the water. For a while this conversation seemed interesting, but the young magician felt that Hecate was still playing with him. „All the tests, _everything_ that had happened was the projection of my fear. You've been watching it all over, and I'm sure you laughed when the wolf bit the bond in the middle of the forest. Seriously, after all, do you still have the nerve to ask what I would do for Derek? You know what? I would kill you, I would rip your heart that was blackened by the cruelty of Tartaros out of your body, and I would put it into myself so that I could to dominate your power and liberate that soul. I would force you into a fire in which you’re destroying Derek, unleashing all the souls and dreamers whom you ever cursed to experience the anguish you caused _him_. And I would laugh at your pain, as you tried to turn back at me all the dark, blighted magic commited in your name, Queen of Nightmares! I would keep torturing you until you came to me begging to let you set my werewolf free." 

Stiles finished the monologue heavily gasping, almost frightened of his own courage and his unconsidered rant. He often heard from his father that sometimes he should think before speaking, but the words came so intuitively that it too late to be sorry.

"That’s it. This madness is what I was looking for in you, boy. You control it well, but it makes you more exciting than you would think. So you would do it for him. You would turn the world order upside down for one soul."

"Yes. For _this_ soul."

Meanwhile Hecate shapeshifted into a ten year old looking little girl, whose black, freely roaming, knee-length hair almost blended into an obsidian, lace-lined dress. It was a horribly absurd experience to discover the hourglass pupil in the brown iris of the girl, and to realize that despite the youthful look this child was as old as time itself.

"I'll offer you an opportunity" said the girl in a tinkling tone. "And the decision is up to you. You also know that nature strives to balance, and that all magic has a price. You have already broke rules by resurrecting Derek. Do you know how big of a tear you caused in the fabric of nature? You opened a gate not only for yourself into Hades, but also gave output to the wandering souls below, and the monsters here who were originally assigned as guards, but now they are the ones who are capable to frighten even the inhabitants of Tartaros. In the world above ghosts are trying to get in touch with people even now, and that is the best case scenario. And your forest, which surrounds Beacon Hills, has also started to dry up. It’s dying. And that's just the beginning, since you're still down here. You've caused this all murmiring a spell, which you tied to your own blood." 

The child glanced at Stiles sadly.

"You did your job according to the rules of Hades and Tartaros, even if the last test didn’t end in the traditional way. Although no one said that you can’t summon me, or can’t cut the soul bond. I am bound to free Derek's soul. However, if I do this, your spell will be complete and Derek's body will not only be a controllable husk. With this act, you are turning the universe against yourself. If your wolf wakes up and the balance is not restored, then apocalyptic circumstances will dominate the earth. Because of you. Because of your sin. Are you willing to put your own happiness and the life of one person ahead of the life of the whole earth?"

Much has gone through Stiles's mind. To begin with, he found it hysterically ridicuous that a kid and a teenager were discussing the future of mankind, putting all the burden on his shoulders, even though even the soul he wanted to save used to call him a hyperactive fool sometimes. He was angry at himself for using blood magic, and although they haven’t talked about it yet, but judging from Hecate’s words he came to the conclusion that he was bound by the spell, and he couldn’t trick it even if he wanted. He analyzed and chewed all the random thoughts that flow through his brain already shaken and distracted by ADHD. He had a lot of questions, and even more doubts. But interestingly, it was the only thing knew for sure: Derek was worth it.

"Let me use a cheesy cliché, at which Derek would roll his eyes like Thomas the Tank Engine, but I don’t care. If all of this really happens, and I really unleashed the Apocalypse, I don’t give a shit about that, because for at least for half an hour I could be happy with that grumpy idiot. And that's my final word. I don’t care about anything else. It will solve itself out. But usually _together_ – and I would emphasize this word, because Derek belongs to the pack too – we are going to figure something out. I believe in _them_ , believe in _us_ that we would stop even the fucking Horsemen of Apocalypse, if that’s necessary." 

Suprisement ran through on the innocent face of the child.

"I didn’t think you would say this since you’re basically a man of logic, but I see that your magic comes from the heart. All right, I accept your answer. But I cannot let really happen all the things we talked about." 

The shape of Hecate began to change again, and again Present stood before Stiles, replacing her little sister from the past.

"Do not move!" She ordered.

Stiles's body stiffened, and felt like the beginning of magic didn’t only paralyze his physical movements, but it also tied his tongue. To his greatest scare blue flames flared up around him, and Hekate began to speak.

"Stiles Stilinski! Hereby, as the depositary of the Laws of the Underworld, Earth and Sky, I admit that Derek Hale's soul belongs to you and is released to you under Section 24 (2) of the Convention. Additionally, I punish you to pay the price you owe to Nature, acting in my capacity as the governor of Tartaros. The accused violated one of the oldest criminal codes, which states that death is a definitive state for all, and it’s reversion must be punished."

Hecate waved her hand and Stiles’s arm set aflame. The boy felt like a million of needles penetrated through his skin, burning his flesh as a fiery iron. The pain, confusion, and the thought that this was the led sent him to the edge of fainting again. However, he did not let himself being carried away with the fog of the pleasant ignorance. He still wanted to know what would happen to him. The burning sensation extended to his shoulders, and as suddenly as it came, it disappeared with the blue flames.

Stiles fell on his knees.

The witch queen was standing over him like a judge in the courtroom over the accused. She touched the shocked boy’s chin with her slim fingers, to see his hazel eyes. The she crouched beside him so carefully like a mother. She pulled the sweatshirt that was covering Stiles’s arm, revealing the contours of a tattoo.

"Look at the lines, Stiles.” She spoke quietly.„You recognize him?"

Stiles nodded and almost inaudible words left his lips.

"Nemeton ... It's the damn Nemeton. It haunts me even on my arms." A laughter started to shake him. "What do you want me to know, Goddess?"

"Look at the drawing better."

He had to admit that he was an odd and beautiful artwork. Nemeton was depicted in its entire splendor, and the picture was alive: Stiles saw the leaves moving on his skin, so vividly that he could almost feel the special, distinct and unparalleled smell of the forest. As he took a closer look, he noticed a variety of shapes around the tree. He started to gasp when he realized what he saw. A wolf with dark brown puppy eyes was running int he company of a much smaller fox. _Scott and Kira_. They were watched by a woman with strawberry blond hair. _Lydia_. He discovered _Chris Argent_ far away from the tree, and _Isaac's_ light brown furs. Then she found _Melissa_ and the _Seriff_. _Danny_ and _Ethan_. Then Derek's black wolf emerged slowly, thoroughly from his elbows to his hands, almost mischievously winking at the boy who was staring him.

"What is this? What is it for? What makes this a punishment?"

"The people who are on this tattoo are the most important for you in your life. If you focus a bit, you can feel the way they breathe, you know where they are and what they are doing. It is a fantastic gift to behold such an artwork. However, this is based on more tricky grounds. I visited your mind, Stiles. I know what you're afraid of the most."

The boy started to move uncomfortably. 

"Hecate ..."

"I'm not finished yet. I saw a lot of things when I entered the hidden corners of your mind. I'm not surprised that this Nogistune has described your soul as sweet. You even realized that you hadn’t commited any of the crimes during the tests. Except for one: when I asked you what else you would be willing to sacrifice for your lover besides necromancy, and you chose him even when I made it clear to you that this would destroy the Earth and all the people with it. This pride in arrogance and stigma is the one you have to atone for. Because you did not want to give up on your own desires for the greater good. I was in your head! I know what you're afraid of: from lonliness. This tattoo will show you all who are close to you or will ever be close to you. This is a curse of Stiles you cannot break. The point is that you will lose every person, werewolf, banshee, anyone you regard as your friend in exchange for Derek's soul. They will not disappear suddenly from your life, but they will slowly forget you, and slowly you will become completely invisible to them. From this time on, every single day of each day, you will wake up with the knowledge that you will vanish from your loved ones’ memories. Except for Derek: it is up to you if you blame yourself, or maybe him after a few years. I saw examples for both cases." 

Hecate went towards the exit of the hall, but for a moment he looked back at the devastated Stiles. 

"The tattoo is to keep track of the events. An eternal reminder of what you did. As someone forgets, the drawings that are related to him will fade away. I'm leaving you now, Stiles, I've done my job here. So I’m setting you free from the Tartaros. Your soul and mind are free and they are yours. Go!"


	11. Chapter 11

Stiles woke up gasping for breath in his flesh-and-blood body, which it seemed like he left ages ago. Every bone in his body was shaking and aching. He felt like his skin got sawn back inside out on his limbs.

The tattoo mockingly appeared under his sleeve.

His brain only now started to process all the information Hecate hurled at him. Everything he heard got replayed: the weight of his action, the decision sealing his fate and the curse. And Derek.

Half skidding in the mud, falling over and over again, he hurried to the man, he was half-blind with tears.

"Stiles?" He heard his name from the werewolf’s lips and felt the strong arms pulling him to his feet and embracing him, calming his tremors a little. "What happened Stiles? My last memory is that the spider something is pumping venom into me, then everything is darkness. Did I sleep much?"

"Oh, Derek..." breathed the boy and threw himself into the man’s arms, holding onto the safe shoulder, like he never wanted to let it go. "Oh, Derek, what have I done?"

The words poured from Stiles' lips like it would cause him physical harm not to say them. The boy himself was destruction himself. He was afraid of Derek’s reaction, afraid he went too far. And afraid that when the soul-thread tore, he made some irredeemable mistake.

"I screwed up Derek..."he cried despairingly. "I screwed up, I’m gonna lose them, and Hecate implied that you’ll hate me or that I’ll hate you. This... this... I just... I just wanted to make things right. I just couldn’t imagine a life without you in it."

Derek softly kissed the boy’s dry lips.

"Stiles, please listen to me: don’t beat up yourself! You know what you’ve done? You got me a whole new chance. You saved me. Hey, listen, we could go to that date, we talked about..."

The boy's body still trembled with the crying, but this made him laugh.

"How ironic. I would have given the universe for this sentence. I would have done anything. "

"Don’t blame yourself!" The werewolf grabbed the boy’s shoulders. "Whatever you’ve done, there’s no curse, that can’t be erased. You said you trust the pack, trust me and them. Don’t give up the fight now. You are a spark; my spark and I’ll be your wolf – it sounded so simple coming from Derek’s mouth. "You rearranged the natural order for me. You let me be your hope. Now let us fight together to find a solution to this curse and every its every consequence. Let me help. Let me be in your future, that we shape together and not some witch from Hades and her gidderish."

Stiles’ panic hasn’t subsided, but he slowly started to feel the hope, Derek’s words gave him.

"Together?"he grabbed onto one of Derek’s hand, linking their fingers together.

"Yes, Stiles, together."

**\- The End -**


End file.
